The Other as Mirror:
Scriptural Reasoning and the Hermeneutics of Ibn Al-Arabi
Ahmed Afzaal,
Drew University
This commentary is a tentative attempt to figure out how Scriptural
Reasoning might work within a Qur'anic universe, in light of some of the
remarks made by this year's learned contributors. In making this
attempt, I will be constantly referring to the hermeneutics of Shaykh
Muhyiddin Ibn Al-Arabi (1165-1240 CE), who was an unusual figure in the
Islamic tradition in view of his extraordinary spiritual genius and his
wide-ranging influence throughout the Muslim world.[1] What follows is neither a very accurate
nor exhaustive rendering of Ibn Al-Arabi's hermeneutics, but my own
interpretation of how some of his views might help us in applying the
insights of Scriptural Reasoning to the study of the Qur'an; the rest of
this commentary is devoted to applying Qur'anic reasoning to the issue
of "ruptures" as introduced by Ellen Davis.
Thinking of Scripture: Reflection and Listening
Alon Goshen-Gottstein has identified
two distinct but interrelated stages in approaching Scripture, which he
calls "thinking of" and "thinking with" Scripture. The first stage
"involves the mind, discernment and critical thinking in an attempt to
understand Scripture for what it is." This stage is "primarily an
intellectual effort," but it also includes "an effort of listening,
involving the heart…." The second stage involves the development
of an understanding that shapes the lives of the readers, engaging their
wills, minds, and hearts, structuring their thought through which they
know reality, guiding and directing them through their lives.
In an attempt to transpose these insights into the Islamic framework,
I found it useful to divide the first stage into two modes —
Reflection Mode and Listening Mode — a distinction that seems to
be implicit in Prof. Goshen-Gottstein's description. In doing so, I am
not implying any particular sequence or relative privilege; on the
contrary, I believe one has to move constantly, to and fro, between
these two modes while carrying out the complex task of "thinking of"
Scripture. I hope that this division could help in partially dealing
with the problem created by the excess baggage of history, tradition,
and modern methodologies that scholars must carry and that tend to
"obscure the spiritual sense of Scripture." I am suggesting that it may
be possible to try and restrict the negative effects of this excess
baggage only to the Reflection Mode, and to primarily use the Listening
Mode for gaining the Scripture's "spiritual sense." While making this
suggestion, I am wondering whether it is even possible to separate the
two modes in practice!
In the Reflection Mode, we scrutinize the text, examining it as an
object of our gaze. We explore the linguistic, etymological, and
grammatical issues; we locate the text in history and in the
sociocultural context of its revelation; we draw upon the resources,
opinions, and interpretations of the past. We try not to make the
legacy of the tradition a part of the Scripture itself, recognizing that
while this legacy often enriches the meaning of the text, it is not
identical with the text, does not share its sanctity, and can easily
eclipse its inherent possibilities. In this mode, we use all analytical
and interpretive tools that we may find at our disposal.[2]
In the Listening Mode, we expose ourselves to Divine words in a state
of humble receptivity. We open up our hearts to welcome the majesty and
sweetness of Scripture, and instead of questions, doubts, suspicions, or
concerns, we allow only affirmation and acceptance to emerge from our
hearts as the only appropriate response to Divine speech. We listen
faithfully, prayerfully, and with full attention, allowing the letters
and sounds of the Scripture to surround and overwhelm us, to permeate
our own beings or to make us part of its universe. In this mode, we let
the Scripture do the work of awakening within us a dormant consciousness
and a forgotten awareness of God's presence.[3]
Admittedly, these two modes exist in tension with each other; yet the
tension, while difficult to negotiate, contains within itself the
possibility of giving birth to a self-conscious and post-critical faith
that may otherwise be unachievable. If this tension could be creatively
used then it might be possible — I hope — that "our
vocation as scholars" would "ultimately facilitate[s]" rather than
"hinder[s] our spiritual lives."
These two modes of "thinking of" Scripture roughly correspond to the
two ways of approaching the Divine in the Islamic tradition. These have
been discussed by Ibn Al-Arabi in considerable detail, who shows that
both of these ways find their justification in the Qur'an itself. The
first is the perspective of tanzih, which focuses on the
incomparability and utter transcendence of God and is associated with
such Divine names as Majestic, Subjugating, Wrathful, Exalted,
Independent, Holy, Glorified, and King; the second is the perspective of
tashbih, which focuses on God's similarity to and immanence in
creation, and is associated with such Divine names as Beautiful,
Compassionate, Near, Loving, Forgiving, and Merciful. Both ways of
knowing are necessary because each is only relatively valid, and
exclusive dependence on any one of them causes human beings to fall into
error, confusion, and ignorance. For Ibn Al-Arabi, these perspectives
do not allow the human beings to have any knowledge of God's ultimate
Essence, which is forever inaccessible to all creatures, but only of the
way in which God chooses to disclose and reveal Himself through His
attributes and names.
Ibn Al-Arabi associates the perspective of tanzih with
rational, critical, and discursive faculties, and the perspective of
tashbih with imagination and unveiling. Reason tends to ignore
the concrete embodiments of reality and continuously indulges in
abstractions; with every gain in philosophical sophistication, God is
increasingly pushed away from and out of creation. While the
perspective of tanzih is necessary and valid — God is the
"beyond-and-beyond" and the "wholly other" — it only tells half of
the story. Ibn Al-Arabi points out that one needs imagination and
unveiling in order to experience that God is immanent in and similar to
creation, and that God encounters us in concrete experiences, embodied
existence, and material realities.
While the perspective of tanzih fiercely maintains the
distinction between Creator and creation, between signs and the
Signified, between symbols and the Symbolized, the perspective of
tashbih obliterates these distinctions and helps us recognize the
presence of the Creator in the creation, the presence of the Signified
in the signs, and the presence of the Symbolized in the symbols. Where
the perspective of tanzih finds multiplicity, the perspective of
tashbih encounters unity. The Qur'an, for its part, clearly
employs both perspectives, often in close proximity to each other, e.g.,
"…there is nothing whatever like unto Him [tanzih] and He is
the One who hears and sees [tashbih]" (42:11).
In the process of "thinking of" Scripture, using the Reflection Mode
can be seen as involving the perspective of tanzih while using
the Listening Mode as involving the perspective of tashbih. When
we approach the Scripture in the Reflection Mode, we rely on our
rational and critical faculties and hope to achieve abstraction,
analysis, explanation, and differentiation. When we approach the
Scripture in the Listening Mode, we rely on our spiritual and emotional
faculties and hope to achieve relationality, synthesis, understanding,
and unity.
The very fact that the perspectives of tanzih and
tashbih lead to results that are mutually exclusive and
contradictory indicates that there must be a third, higher level of
knowledge that transcends both of them. Ibn Al-Arabi would not want us
to get trapped in either the Reflection or the Listening Mode. He would
want us to employ both of these modes in a manner appropriate to them,
but then to strive for tahqiq (verification) by attempting to
transcend all perspectives without rejecting any of them. Ibn Al-Arabi
believes that reaching the level of tahqiq — a stage of
human perfection where one is no longer constrained by the limitations
of different perspectives — is entirely dependent on God's
grace.
How can all this help us in approaching the Song of Songs? I agree
with Prof. Ellen Davis that the rabbis who included it in the Biblical
canon knew what they were doing; they clearly saw the religious meaning
of this poem that many of us moderns are not able to perceive. It is
possible that at least some modern difficulties in interpreting the Song
of Songs as a religious text have stemmed from an epistemological
imbalance. In more ways than one, modernity is characterized by an
emphasis on the perspective of tanzih and relative disregard for
the perspective of tashbih. That is to say, too much reliance on
rational abstractions and less on concrete experience may be at the root
of why a poetic expression of erotic love seems to us to have nothing to
do with our experience of God.
The problem seems to be grounded in what can perhaps be called the
most characteristic feature of Enlightenment rationalism. In general,
that rationalism elevated the capacities of human reason over everything
that it viewed as non-reason. In the process, aspects of human
experience that were seen as other than rational came to be treated with
a certain amount of disdain. This epistemological arrogance of
rationalism attempted to deprive the human beings of the validity of the
full range of their capacities for knowing and experiencing reality,
including those that are embedded within the human body and in human
emotions.[4]
In this context, the prominence given in the Qur'anic discourse to
the material and sensual world deserves our attention. The Qur'an
describes the universe as having been created "in truth" (e.g., 15:85;
44:39) just as it describes God's revelation as having been sent down
"in truth" (e.g., 4:105; 17:105). Based on his understanding of the
Qur'an, Ibn Al-Arabi views the constituents of the material cosmos as so
many Divine words whose ultimate meaning is none other than God. The
Qur'anic emphasis on bodily resurrection alludes to the fact that the
body is an integral part of the human self.[5] This attention to the material and
sensual world is a feature of the Qur'anic discourse that causes
consternation among those who would rather have an abstract and
disembodied religiosity — as if God reveals Himself only in the
spirit and not in the body. For Ibn Al-Arabi, human beings encounter
God not just in abstract theology, but also — and much more
frequently — in the concrete, embodied, and material aspects of
creation.
This implies that concrete human experience is one of the most
accessible arenas where God can be found, and this includes the realm of
sexuality and erotic love. But in order to find God in the arena of
concrete human experience, the perspective of tashbih is needed
rather than that of tanzih. It is only through the perspective
of tashbih that we can experience the similarity and
comparability between our yearnings for a human beloved and our longings
for God; between the pain of our separation from a human beloved and the
torment of our alienation from God; between the pleasure of our
closeness to a human beloved and the joy of our intimacy with God.
Indeed, anyone who has ever been in love can hardly deny the reality of
Hell and Paradise! As Omid Safi
demonstrates, in the Islamic tradition these experiences have been most
eloquently expressed in poetry and by the Sufis, i.e., in a medium that
is supremely congenial to the perspective of tashbih and by
individuals who have made the best use of this perspective.[6]
The sacred nature and religious significance of erotic love and
sexual union have been recognized often enough in the history of
religions, though certainly not in all forms of religiosity. Ibn
Al-Arabi, for instance, believes that the greatest occasion for
experiencing God's self-disclosure in this world is to be found in the
act of sexual union, which gives a foretaste of the joy of human
intimacy with the Divine in the Paradise.
Thinking with Scripture: The Word becomes Flesh
The second stage of Scriptural Reasoning is "thinking with"
Scripture. Once we have taken the preliminary steps to comprehend the
Scripture in both the Reflection and the Listening Modes, we are — if
God so wills — on our way to learn how to "think with" Scripture,
i.e., how to allow the wisdom of the Scripture to shape our wills,
minds, and hearts so that our intentions, thoughts, and feelings work in
harmony with that wisdom. Both "thinking of" and "thinking with"
Scripture are processes that must undergo constant self-correction, most
importantly in light of what the Scripture itself has to say about these
processes. In addition, "thinking with" Scripture has a reflexive
influence on "thinking of" Scripture; the Islamic tradition has often
recognized that knowledge of God is a function of obeying God.
The process of "thinking with" Scripture appears to be one of
internalizing and assimilating the Scripture, or, alternatively, getting
immersed in the world of the Scripture. In the Islamic tradition, the
ultimate model of complete internalization of, or immersion in, the
Qur'an is provided by Prophet Muhammad himself, whose behavior and
character was described as being identical with the Qur'an itself. This
remains the ideal for all Muslims — the goal of embodying the word of
God in the world of flesh.
Among other things, learning to "think with" Scripture means learning
to align our own reasoning style in harmony with that of the Qur'an.
The least that can be said about the Qur'anic style of reasoning is that
reading it exclusively from the perspective of tanzih or only
from the perspective of tashbih is not going to take the reader
very far in the direction of knowledge. The Qur'anic style of reasoning
may be seen as a dialectic between the perspective of tanzih and
that of tashbih. For every thesis, it seems that an antithesis
exists somewhere in the Qur'an; yet this does not indicate the presence
of a contradiction, a defect from which the Qur'an claims to be
absolutely free (4:82). For instance, the Qur'an emphasizes retributive
justice while simultaneously stressing forgiveness in the same context
(42:39-43); following the logic of the Qur'an, this cannot be a
contradiction. It is, in fact, a nuanced interplay between the
contradictory demands of tanzih and tashbih respectively.
Through this dialectical style of reasoning, the Qur'an seems to be
giving an implicit invitation and a tacit challenge to rise above the
perspectives of both tanzih and tashbih. This
extraordinary feat — which is what "thinking with" Scripture is
perhaps all about in the Qur'anic context — is impossible to
achieve without first understanding and accepting both of these
perspectives as correct and valid in their own right.
Primordial Ruptures: Beyond Identity and Distinction
This leads us to one of the most important insights found in this
year's contributions, which is Davis' recognition that the Song of Song
indicates the possibility of healing in three primary spheres of
relationship: the ruptures between God and humanity, between man and
woman, between humanity and nonhuman nature. I will attempt to apply
the Qur'anic style of reasoning suggested above to the question of these
ruptures as a test case.
While the Qur'an recognizes the presence of these and other ruptures,
it does not always treat them in negative terms. In explaining a number
of situations characterized by self-other duality, the Qur'an seems to
indicate that in each case separation or rupturing has followed a
primordial state of unity, implying that these ruptures are creative in
their effect. According to the Qur'an, the creation of man and woman
came about out of a single and apparently non-gendered entity (4:1); the
diversity of religious communities took place due to the fragmentation
of an originally unified community (10:19); the multiplicity of races
and ethnicities owes itself to differentiation in the progeny of a
single human family (49:13); the separation of human beings from
non-human nature took place when God breathed His spirit into a being
that was created out of earthly matter (15:28-29). For Ibn Al-Arabi,
more fundamental than all of these ruptures is the primordial
polarization of Reality into God and the cosmos.
From the perspective of tanzih, the differentiation between
the two members in each self-other duality is complete and
irreconcilable. From the perspective of tashbih, the two members
in each duality represent two aspects of the same reality, and are in
fact inseparable — one might even say indistinguishable — from
each other. In other words, in every instance of what is experienced as
a self-other duality, each member contains a part of the other within
itself, as if the two were ontologically interlocked and interdependent.
Consequently, when one looks at the other, one finds not only the other
but also one's own self; similarly, when one looks at one's own self,
one finds not only oneself but also the other. This implies that one
needs one's other in order to know one's own self and to satisfy the
desire of being known by the other, both of which are prerequisites —
at least in the case of human beings — for fully becoming
oneself.
I refer to the non-Qur'anic Divine saying that Safi has also quoted, according to
which God said: "I was a Hidden Treasure so I loved to be known;
therefore I created the creation so I may be known." This Divine saying
locates the cause of the coming into existence of the cosmos in God's
loving to be known by His "others." For Ibn Al-Arabi and his followers
in the Islamic tradition, there is only one Reality, one true Being,
which is identical with Divine Essence. To say that "there is no god
but God" is to say that "there is no real but the Real." From the
perspective of tanzih, God created the cosmos so that He could be
known by His creatures; from the perspective of tashbih, however,
these created "others" have no existence of their own because there is
only one true Being. The status of these created beings is ambiguous at
best, as they hang somewhere between Absolute Being and sheer
nothingness. Because of this ambiguity — which makes everything
God/not God at the same time — the "others" act act as mirrors of/for
God, making God "known" by reflecting His attributes to each other and
also back to God Himself.
The God-cosmos "rupture" is therefore supremely creative; it needs to
be experienced, appreciated, and celebrated. For Ibn Al-Arabi, every
event and entity in the created universe represents the self-disclosure
of God through which God makes Himself "known." This phenomenon of
self-disclosure is precisely what the Qur'an refers to in terms of
ayaat (signs) of God found in the created universe as well as
within the human self. From the perspective of tanzih, creation
consists of signs that signify none other than the Creator; from the
perspective of tashbih, the Creator is found within these signs
which have no existence apart from what they signify. These two views
apparently contradict each other but do not cancel each other out; the
presence of a third perspective, that of tahqiq, indicates that
the ontological relationship between God and the cosmos actually goes
beyond both distinction and identity.
In this context, the God-human rupture cannot be an existential
separation but primarily a consequence of "forgetfulness" on the part of
the human being. God is too close to the human being for this rupture
to be an existential separation; it is precisely due to this intimacy
that forgetting God directly leads to forgetting one's own self. The
Qur'an has warned: "…and be not like those who became oblivious of
God, and therefore God caused them to be oblivious of their own
selves…" (59:19). The reverse is also true; it has been
well-recognized in the Islamic tradition that knowledge of God is
dependent on knowledge of self; in fact, the two are actually one. The
Islamic tradition attributes to Prophet Muhammad the saying "he who
knows himself knows his Lord," but the same idea is also found in
different forms within the Christian tradition.[7] The close relationship between the
knowledge of self and the knowledge of God is explained by the fact that
human beings have been created in the "image of God," which implies that
while every creature or phenomenon in the created cosmos reflects a
limited configuration of a few attributes of God, the human being has
the unique potential of reflecting all of God's attributes in their
fullness, and thereby becoming the best possible mirrors of God through
which He might become "known." The Qur'anic command "Dye yourselves in
the color of God…" (2:138) and the prophetic saying "Produce in
yourselves the attributes of God" point to the same duty of striving
towards the fullness of human perfection. According to Ibn Al-Arabi,
each human being has the potential to achieve this perfection by
becoming Al-Insan Al-Kamil; the actualization of this potential,
however, is dependent entirely on God's grace.
Consequently, a rupture in the God-human relationship implies human
beings' forgetting of their own potential, which is the same calamity as
forgetting God. To the extent that human beings know their own selves
— i.e., the highest potential with which they have been endowed
— they come to know God in whose image they have been created;
and the extent to which they come to know God, they are able to realize
their potential by approximating the ideal of human perfection.[8] The degree of existential
reality that human beings can achieve is a function of the degree of
their knowledge of God and self. The gradual realization of their
potential makes human beings increasingly unique in the hierarchy of
being, so that — in an apparent paradox — their identity
with and distinction from God will go on increasing indefinitely.[9]
A similar scenario might apply to the rupture between man and woman.
Human beings standing on the opposite sides of the gender line view each
other as different from themselves. In seeing each other as different,
they are absolutely correct from the perspective of tanzih;
however, the perspective of tashbih establishes the identity and
essential similarity between them. All unjust situations of domination
and abuse in gender relations result from an overemphasis on the
perspective of tanzih and a disregard for that of tashbih.
Neither man nor woman is able to achieve human perfection without
actualizing the full range of human potentialities, i.e.,
qualities and attributes that are designated as "masculine" as well as
those that are believed to be "feminine," in appropriate proportion.
While it takes the perspective of tanzih to realize and foster
one's potentialities that are believed to correspond to one's own
gender, it requires the perspective of tashbih to do the same for
those that are thought to correspond to the opposite gender. Yet, the
presence of a third perspective, that of tahqiq, indicates that
the ontological relationship between man and woman actually goes beyond
both distinction and identity.
Human beings see nature as totally different from themselves, which
enables them to objectify it as an inert mass of matter to be used for
their own benefits. This is the perspective of tanzih, which is
correct and useful to the extent that it has given rise to the numerous
desirable aspects of science and technology. Too much emphasis on the
perspective of tanzih, however, is responsible for the unbridled
abuse of nature and a global ecological crisis that threatens the every
existence of life on earth. It is only through the perspective of
tashbih that human beings can come to acknowledge, in a
meaningful and effective manner, that they themselves are part of nature
and are inseparable from it. Whatever they do to nature, they do to
themselves. Once again, the presence of a third perspective, that of
tahqiq, indicates that the ontological relationship between human
beings and nonhuman nature goes beyond both distinction and
identity.
Consequently, human beings cannot become truly human without
appreciating the opposite gender and the nonhuman nature, just as they
cannot become truly human without knowing God — in terms of both
distinction and identity.
[1] Ibn Al-Arabi has also
been a controversial figure in Islam, revered and criticized with almost
equal zeal. Much of this controversy can be traced to the inherent
complexity of his writings; unable to decipher him directly, opponents
have often formed superficial and incorrect views based on misleading
and sometimes hostile secondary sources. While this tendency crept into
early Orientalist approaches, more recent Western scholarship on Ibn
Al-Arabi is yielding increasingly refined interpretations of his oeuvre,
as seen in the works by Henry Corbin, Toshihiko Izutsu, Michel
Chodkeiwicz, William Chittick, Sachiko Murata, James Morris, Claude
Addas, and others. In writing this essay, I have relied mainly on
Chittick's translations and commentaries of Ibn Al-Arabi's works.
[2] I believe that the
Reflection Mode, in at least some of its manifestations, comes rather
close to the Qur'anic sense of tadabbur, tafakkur, and
ta'aqqul, all of which imply the use of intellectual capacities
to gain an understanding of the Scripture (e.g., 2:242; 4:82, 10:24;
12:2, 16:44; 47:24).
[3] The Listening Modes
appears to be close to the Qur'anic sense of tadhakkur, which
implies a process of remembering a forgotten truth, particularly through
the Scripture (e.g., 2:221; 28:43; 39:28; 54:17).
[4] Cf., Spretnak, Charlene.
1997. The Resurgence of the Real: Body, Nature, and Place in a
Hypermodern World. New York: Routledge.
[5] Cf., Nasr, Seyyed
Hossein. 1996. Religion and the Order of Nature. New York:
Oxford University Press, pp. 235-292.
[6] Contemporary Islamic
revivalists and Muslim modernists share a tendency with early
Orientalists that views Sufism as a foreign introduction in Islam. It
may be noted here that Sufism, as well as the perspective of
tashbih that it emphasizes, are both Qur'anic in their origin and
legitimacy. Sufism does not contain more foreign influences than what
is the case with classical tafsir; the mere presence of non-Islamic
influences does not make either of them a foreign introduction in
Islam.
[7] Similar sayings are
found in Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Evagrius,
Augustine, etc.
[8] Ibn Al-Arabi's notion of
the perfect human being seems to be identical with the Qur'anic notion
of khalifah (God's vicegerent on earth); both should be seen as
possibilities or potentialities, not as a right that one possesses
simply on account of being born a Homo sapience.
[9] I am not sure if Ibn
Al-Arabi would agree with this interpretation of human destiny. In
twentieth century Islam, the most eloquent proponent of self-affirming
mysticism has been Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) who had an ambivalent
relationship with Ibn Al-Arabi. See his Secrets of the Self,
English translation by R. A. Nicholson. London: MacMillan and Company
Ltd., 1920.
© 2003, Society for Scriptural
Reasoning
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